First 5 Alameda County Commission

An eight member volunteer commission oversees the work of First 5 Alameda County, which supports the health, development and well-being of our youngest children through their first five years. Commissioners are selected and appointed by the Alameda County Board of Supervisors based upon their expertise in early care and education, health care, social services and children with special needs. The full commission meets up to six times a year.

Commissioner Bios

Commissioner Renee Sutton Herzfeld - Chair

Chair Renee Sutton Herzfeld is the Executive Director of Community Child Care Council (4C’s) of Alameda County. As 4C’s Executive Director she is the chief officer over management and implementation of agency operations and programs which include the following: The Resource and Referral agency for southern Alameda County, an award winning national Child Health and Nutrition program, Child Care Payment programs which provide financial support to assist low income parents in accessing child care, Bright Future Early Learning Center in Oakland; and, 4C’s Annual Children’s Faire where the whole community comes together in the spirit of an old proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child”

Renee has held adjunct faculty positions and taught Early Childhood Education courses at Chabot, Ohlone, and Merritt Colleges. She has served on the Alameda County Local Planning Council, and was State President for the California Child Development Administrators Association. Having served the community for the past 25 years she has gained considerable expertise in working with child development professionals at various levels. She is currently a member of the management team for the Hayward Promise Neighborhood.

Renee is passionately dedicated to achieving excellence within the organization she serves, as well as local, state and national efforts that ensure that children have environments and resources they need to be healthy and strong. She and her husband are delighted to be the parents of two daughters, Hannah and Liane.

Commissioner Cecilia Echeverría - Vice Chair

Cecilia Echeverría is the Senior Director for Public Policy, Strategy & Operations for Kaiser Permanente’s Institute for Health Policy (IHP). In her role, Cecilia identifies emerging health policy topics and guides the Institute’s portfolio of work. Her specific areas of expertise include access to health care for underserved populations as well as behavioral health, school based health, and early childhood issues. She also leads strategy and operations for IHP.

Cecilia joined Kaiser Permanente in 2013 as the Director of Safety Net Partnerships for the National Community Benefit program. In her role, Cecilia helped accelerate safety net grant strategy and initiatives. She also fostered the development and spread of national and regional safety net partnerships.

Prior to Kaiser Permanente, Cecilia served as a program officer for Blue Shield of California Foundation where she managing the portfolio of grants focused on strengthening California's healthcare safety net. She has also served as a senior program officer with The California Endowment where she provided strategic direction to The Endowment's efforts to promote school health, expand public health insurance coverage, and strengthen the healthcare safety net. Before that she was with the California HealthCare Foundation as a policy analyst. Outside of philanthropy, she has served as a legislative analyst for the Congressional Research Service (CRS) in Washington, D.C., and as a special projects associate for the Alameda County Public Health Department.

Cecilia has a bachelor of arts in social welfare, a master’s in public policy, and a master’s in public health from University of California, Berkeley. She is an alumnus of the Presidential Management Fellowship program and in 2012 she was selected as a participant in the Grantmakers in Health Terrance Keenan Institute for Emerging Leaders in Health Philanthropy. She currently serves as an Alameda County First 5 Commissioner and sits on the board of directors for the California School Based Health Alliance.

Commissioner Wilma Chan

Commissioner Wilma Chan has been a strong advocate for children and families for over 35 years. Commissioner Chan served as the first woman Majority Leader of the California State Assembly. She represented Oakland, Alameda and Piedmont in the State Assembly from 2000-2006. She authored many groundbreaking bills including making California the first state to ban toxic flame retardants and implement a no-lead standard in drinking water pipes and fixtures. Ms. Chan authored historic legislation to end the practice of hospitals overcharging uninsured and underinsured patients and to cover California’s 800,000 uninsured children. She won approval of $100 million to expand State Preschool and fought successfully to maintain the state’s Master Plan for college student access. It was her bill that in 2010 blew the whistle on Anthem Blue Cross when they tried to implement a 33% rate increase in California. The national attention to this issue helped propel national healthcare reform to victory.

Prior to her election to the Assembly, Ms. Chan was elected twice as the first Asian American to serve on the Alameda County Board of Supervisors after completing a term on the Oakland Board of Education. As a Supervisor, Ms. Chan wrote the strategic plan to keep the County Medical Center open and formed the Alameda County First 5 Commission. She implemented a citizenship program with the passage of welfare reform and formed the Alameda and San Leandro Youth collaboratives.

Ms. Chan holds a BA in history from Wellesley College and an MA in education policy and administration from Stanford University. She has two grown children and one grandchild.

She served as the Legislator in Residence at UC Berkeley during the 2006-07 academic years and taught political science on campus for two years. In addition, served for four years on the California Medical Assistance Commission where she worked to assure timely access to hospital care for MediCal recipients statewide. She has worked on healthcare reform projects in Alameda County, including an expansion of health services at the Peralta Community Colleges. She most recently served as Vice President for Policy at Children Now, a national children’s advocacy organization located in Oakland.

Commissioner Lori Cox

Commissioner Lori Cox is a dynamic, highly effective leader, Ms. Lori Cox has more than twenty years of notable success working on behalf of communities, individuals, families and their children. Her career spans the non-profit and government sectors from direct service to policy. Recently selected to head-up the Alameda County Social Services Agency -- overseeing critical safety-net programs such as Child Welfare, Adult Protection, CalFresh (formerly food stamps), Medi-Cal eligibility, and cash aid -- Ms. Cox is among a new generation of system leaders. Her career demonstrates an unwavering commitment to forging working relationships that hold residents as active partners in creating healthy, thriving communities. Ms. Cox is also distinguished by her ascension to leadership through a rare combination of vision and operational skills. In her sixteen years with Alameda County, Lori has led the design and implementation of a number of highly successful programs. In addition to being a systems leader, Ms. Cox is the proud mother of three sons.

Commissioner Scott Coffin

Commissioner Scott Coffin is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for the Alameda Alliance for Health (Alliance) a $1B public non-profit health plan that serves more than 260,000 residents in Alameda County. Mr. Coffin oversees the entire operation of the health plan and ensures that all Alliance members receive timely access to quality health care and the highest levels of customer service. He has more than 22 years of experience in health care leadership, including health plan management and hospital administration, and has dedicated the last nine years of his career integrating Medicare and Medicaid services, improving access to care, and implementing quality improvement programs.

In addition to serving as a First 5 Alameda County Commissioner, Mr. Coffin serves on the Board of Local Health Plans of California (LHPC). He continues the work of innovating community-focused partnerships to address unmet needs, to improve the overall quality of life by improving health and health outcomes among underserved and aging populations.

Prior to joining the Alliance, Mr. Coffin served as the Executive Director for Anthem Blue Cross, Northern CA and oversaw the operations for over 500,000 Medi-Cal members in 18 urban and rural counties in Northern California. Mr. Coffin founded the DeSante Group LLC, a health care consulting firm that delivered Medicaid integration services to senior leaders at state health agencies, health plans, hospitals and physician groups. He also has held leadership positions with the Health Plan of San Joaquin, Blue Shield of California, Sutter Health Hospitals, and Vision Service Plan. Mr. Coffin earned his degree in business administration at California State University in San Bernardino, and continued his professional development and education at Dartmouth College Tuck School of Business.

Commissioner Scott Coffin resides in Oakland with his wife and two children.

Commissioner Tomás A. Magaña, MD, MA, FAAP

Tomás A. Magaña, MD, MA, FAAPis a Latino physician, program director, educator and advocate dedicated to improving care and health outcomes for the state’s most vulnerable children. Dr. Magaña is a board-certified pediatrician with expertise in the care of at-risk children and adolescents. He is a Lead Physician in the Department of School-Based Health Centers at La Clínica de La Raza, Inc. where he serves the complex medical needs of diverse youth from Alameda County. He is also Assistant Professor/Medical Director in the Masters Physician Assistant Department at Samuel Merritt University and an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. Previously, Dr. Magaña was a member of the Division of Adolescent Medicine at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland, where he served as Medical Director of Alameda County’s Juvenile Justice Center and attending physician at the Youth Uprising School-Based Health Center in East Oakland, CA.

Dr. Magaña is a leading expert in the design and implementation of health workforce pipeline programs for youth. As a Principal Investigator at the Public Health Institute in Oakland, CA, he serves as Founding Director of the FACES for the Future Coalition, a collaborative of statewide programs designed to prepare disadvantaged youth for entry into college and careers in the health professions. He is actively leading the efforts to disseminate the successful FACES model throughout the nation. Dr. Magaña’s work with vulnerable youth has been featured on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, NBC Bay Area News, the SF Chronicle and in People Magazine.

Dr. Magaña is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and has served on a number of regional and national advisory boards focusing on pediatric health issues, healthcare workforce development and cultural competency in medicine. Dr. Magaña received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University, his Masters degree from U.C. Berkeley, and his medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco. He completed his pediatric residency at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland.

Dr. Magaña is a first generation college graduate, and has dedicated much of his life to serving underserved communities. He has a passion for programs that foster leadership, wellness and professional development for youth.

Commissioner Pamela Simms-Mackey, M.D., FAAP

Dr. Simms-Mackey, a board-certified pediatrician, is the Director of Graduate Medical Education, the Director of the Pediatric Residency Program and an active member of the Primary Care Department at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland. Her career has centered on Medical Education, Multicultural Education in efforts to reduce healthcare disparities and Community Leadership and Mentorship.

Currently, Dr. Simms-Mackey serves on the First 5 Alameda County Commission, which uses tobacco tax monies to fund programs that target the well-being of children 0-5 years. She is also on the American Board of Pediatrics Examination Committee and the Maintenance of Certification Committee, as well as, a Board of Director for the California Wellness Foundation. She has been the Director of the Multicultural Curriculum Program, as well as the Director of the Education Core for the National Center for Minority Health Disparities NIH Center of Excellence in Nutritional Genomics at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland. She is also an active member of Children’s Hospital medical staff, serving as the Chair of the Graduate Medical Education Committee, the Pediatric Residency Selection Committee and a member of the Continuing Medical Education Committee. She clinically still practices and has served as the primary care physician for many children throughout Alameda County and the Greater Bay Area for the past 20 years.

Dr. Simms-Mackey earned her undergraduate degree from Stanford University, her medical degree from the University of California, Los Angeles in the Charles R. Drew Medical Education Program. She completed her pediatric residency and chief residency at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland.

She and her husband have two sons and are active in their school and extracurricular activities.

Commissioner Kimi Watkins-Tartt

Kimi Watkins-Tartt serves as the Deputy Director of the Alameda County Public Health Department. Ms. Watkins-Tartt is responsible for the oversight of the department’s operational divisions which include Family Health Services, Community Health Services, Public Health Nursing and Communicable Disease Control and Prevention. Additionally, Ms. Watkins-Tartt oversees the management of internal department policies, program budget and grant coordination and personnel management. Ms. Watkins-Tartt has worked for over 25 years within the local public health community and brings a wealth of experience in public health administration, policy development, as well as community health planning and coordination. Prior to taking on the role of Deputy Director, Ms. Watkins-Tartt led the Division of Community Health Services, driving the Division’s strategic initiatives including the launching of new efforts that aligned with the department’s strategic direction to achieve health equity. Ms. Watkins-Tartt was instrumental in helping the public health department launch its local policy initiative and recently spearheaded the department’s Chronic Disease Prevention Planning process.

Ms. Watkins-Tartt has a long standing passion and commitment to health equity and social justice and currently serves on the Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative and the Health Equity and Social Justice Committee of the National Association of City and County Health Officials (NACCHO).